


No More Water, but Fire Next Time

by ladivvinatravestia



Series: We Shall Overcome [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake/Pretend Family, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Redania Room, accidental teenager acquisition, plagues & pandemics, there are no doctors in the house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: Jaskier and Ciri take shelter at a refugee camp following the fall of Cintra, where they find that Pestilence and War often ride together.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: We Shall Overcome [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806007
Comments: 52
Kudos: 325
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lockdown Fest 2020. Shoutout to my man Giovanni Bocaccio, who originated the first Lockdown Fest in 1348. Many thanks to [SwashbuckLore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwashbuckLore/profile) for the beta.
> 
> I’ve used some book/game characters and plot elements but taken them in my own direction, so if you are unfamiliar with the book and game characters, all you really need to know is that Sigismund Dijkstra is the head of the Redanian Secret Service; Philippa Eilhart is a Sorceress and advisor to the King of Redania; and, at this point in the chronology, Radovid is the Crown Prince of Redania. 
> 
> Additional warnings: Geralt is, for the most part, Sir Not Appearing In This Fic; Jaskier experiences some bi erasure; some characters express sexist and homophobic views with respect to same-sex parenting and gender norms; Jaskier and Ciri share a bed entirely platonically more than once; author and characters have poor understanding of viral transmission process; implications that Jaskier and Dara have been exposed to sexual harassment and possibly sexual assault while underage.

Jaskier doesn’t have time to stain Ciri’s hair with walnut shells, but he chops it into a fringe and plaits it into a style more commonly seen among merchant and peasant girls.

“First lesson,” he says, “choose a name you’ll remember to answer to.”

“Fiona,” she says confidently.

“Okay, good,” he says. He gestures to the road and they begin walking again. “Now, a cover story. How do we know one another?”

“You can be – my music tutor,” says Ciri, after a moment’s thought.

Jaskier shakes his head. “Most Cintran girls don’t have music tutors,” he says.

Ciri thinks about it. “I suppose they don’t,” she agrees. “My – older brother?”

Jaskier smiles. “Fiona, how old are you?”

“Thirteen,” says Ciri.

“And how old do you suppose I am?” he asks.

“Twenty?” Ciri hazards.

“I was at your mother’s betrothal banquet,” he reminds her.

“Well, I don’t know, then,” says Ciri crossly. She slips in a particularly mucky patch of road, and Jaskier catches her by the elbow to right her.

“I’m forty-one,” he tells her.

She gapes up at him. “But that’s almost as old as my gran!” she says. Jaskier shrugs apologetically.

“I am  _ not  _ calling you my Grandpapa,” Ciri declares.

“Nor should you,” Jaskier agrees. “Most Cintrans get married far later than the nobility do. It gives them time to learn a trade and build up the money to purchase and run their own household.”

Ciri frowns, thinking. Jaskier frowns, too, but for a different reason. Up ahead, the way marker points to Riverdell, but here, boot prints and wagon ruts leave the road in several directions. He always leaves the tracking up to Geralt. Which one is most likely to lead to a camp that’s large enough to take them in, but small enough that they won’t be recognized?

“You could be my papa?” Ciri ventures.

Jaskier hesitates.

“You can’t tell me that most Cintran girls don’t have papas,” Ciri continues.

“You’d be surprised how many children get on just fine with only one parent,” says Jaskier. “Inheritance becomes a lot less critical when there’s only a few pieces of silver plate to be thought about.”

“Oh,” says Ciri in a small voice, as though only just now coming to grips with how extraordinary her life may have been to date.

“Most Cintran children have dads,” Jaskier says.

“So you could be my – dad?” says Ciri hesitantly.

“Yes,” agrees Jaskier.

“Okay,” says Ciri.

Jaskier chooses one of the branching paths from the main road, and takes it. Ciri follows.

“I never knew my real dad,” Ciri says in a small voice.

“Nor I mine,” agrees Jaskier.

“Jas – Dad?” says Ciri.

“Yes?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

Jaskier holds out his hand, and Ciri grabs it. Her small fingers are cold, and they tremble.

“I’m scared,” she says.

“So am I,” Jaskier agrees.

Jaskier’s choice of track proves good enough, and after a short slog following a very obvious trail into the forest, they come upon a refugee camp. For better or worse, it’s reasonably-well organized already, with youths just too young and farmers just too essential to have gone off to war guarding a hastily-constructed palisade. Jaskier and Ciri find themselves queueing for some time before reaching the entrance.

“Papers?” asks a bespectacled older man sitting on a log, a ledger balanced on his lap.

Ciri squeezes Jaskier’s hand nervously and looks up at him. Jaskier does, of course, have several sets of papers, some Cintran, even, but none remotely appropriate for this particular set of circumstances. 

“I, ah, haven’t got any,” he stammers, looking down and rubbing at the back of his neck. He needs to look like a scared refugee well out of his depth, not a seasoned political operative smuggling a valuable crown princess.

The man sighs but waves them over to a different queue. When they reach the front of this one, there’s a woman about Jaskier’s age with a ledger, and an older one hovering behind her with a second ledger.

“Name?” asks the younger one.

“Julian of Kerack,” says Jaskier.

“Trade?” she asks.

No non-noble Cintran would be a bard, or even a minstrel, and Filavandrel’s lute is so singular that the minute anyone sees it, Jaskier’s identity will be evident. It’s true that anyone can see by the shape of the case that he carries a lute, but many Cintrans make music as a pastime. And if he’s asked to pull it out and play it in the evening, he can just claim it’s damaged beyond repair, or he’s sworn to only play it in peacetime, or some such.

“Clerk,” he says.

“Right,” says the woman, stopping to blow her nose long and loud into a handkerchief. Jaskier puts an arm out instinctively to shield Ciri, remembering something Geralt said once about illness passing through droplets of phlegm. “So you have your letters. Have you any other skills? Chopping wood, setting traps, dressing game, making a fire?”

“I’m a dab hand at most of those things, but for chopping wood,” Jaskier allows.

“Have you any medical knowledge at all?” asks the older woman, flipping through her ledger.

“I can stitch up a wound well enough, but I don’t know much of herbals or simples,” says Jaskier.

The two women look at each other. “Curious set of skills for a  _ clerk _ ,” says the older one.

Time for some omissions and near-truths. “My husband was a – freelancer,” says Jaskier.

“Was?” asks the younger woman, looking up at Jaskier sharply.

“Yes, he – went out with Queen Calanthe’s army last week and didn’t come back. Melitele willing, he’ll find us again, but – you know.” It’s less difficult than he expects to infuse his speech with the right mix of hope and pessimism.

“And your daughter?” the younger woman asks.

“She’s thirteen,” Jaskier replies. He doesn’t mind contributing to the economy of the camp, himself, while he determines what to do next, but he doesn’t fancy being separated from Ciri, or having her put to work.

“One presumes, having two fathers, she hasn’t been learning any of the traditional feminine arts?” says the older woman.

“Oh, no, my Gran was teaching me to sword fight,” says Ciri, pointing her chin up defiantly.

The younger woman looks down at her ledger to hide a smile. “It’s true; the Lioness did lead her first army to victory at age fifteen,” she says.

“Right,” agrees Ciri.

“Fiona,” says Jaskier warningly.

The younger woman blows her nose again, then asks Ciri, “Have you your letters?”

“Yes,” sniffs Ciri, offended.

“Right, please give us a moment,” says the older woman. The younger woman makes to stand up, but her older colleague puts a hand on her shoulder and sits next to her instead. They page through their ledgers and confer for a few moments. Then the older one says,

“There’s space for you in the tent with the other widows. We’ll give you the rest of the day to get settled, but we’re assigning you to help in the infirmary starting tomorrow morning. Your daughter can help you, or she can work with the other pages and runners in the camp.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaskier agrees.

The older woman gestures for a dark-skinned boy in a cap who has been hovering nearby, and he comes forward. He looks to be around Ciri’s age. “Here, Dara will help you find what you need.”

The younger woman puts her fist to her mouth and coughs wetly.

Under other circumstances, or perhaps in a previous life, Jaskier would have been delighted to be allowed unfettered access to a tent full of widows. Now, he’s just tired and on edge. He and Ciri find a free cot and hang up their meagre possessions on the tent pole behind it. As the daylight begins to wane, the younger woman from the camp’s gate finds them again inside the tent.

“Julian, Fiona,” she says, “I’m Savvina. I am so sorry for what Xenia said earlier about the feminine arts.”

“Well, I assume that being a clerk is also a feminine art?” Jaskier asks, making an assumption about her trade.

“Lawyer, actually,” says Savvina, and Jaskier smiles. Even better. He’s always admired intelligent, independent women. “But ‘general’ is a good feminine trade, too,” she tells Ciri.

“That’s good, because I despise spinning and embroidery,” says Ciri.

“Both your dads did learn how to sew, though,” Jaskier tells her, as they follow the other inhabitants of the tent to the food line outside. “You’d be surprised how often that comes in handy on the road.”

Later in the evening when they are crammed together in their lumpy cot, Ciri asks, “Was my ‘other dad’ Geralt of Rivia?”

“Yes,” says Jaskier, a little surprised Queen Calanthe chose to tell her even that much, “but take care, I think, not to speak his name so loudly, either.”

“I shan’t,” Ciri promises. “Only, will you tell me about him? And, is he really dead, do you think?”

“Oh, no,” says Jaskier, “only escaped the royal dungeon at a truly inconvenient time.”

He hadn’t told Geralt he was going to Cintra for Ciri’s name-day feast – they’ve always agreed to leave each other’s secrets well enough alone – but he also hadn’t expected Geralt to show up in Cintra to try to claim Ciri while he was there, and he’d had to do some fast talking to avoid getting thrown in the dungeon right alongside him. Now, he suspects they’ll have strong words for each other when they manage to catch up with each other, but he still hopes it will be soon. They’ve missed their first pre-arranged rendezvous with each other, both still detained in Cintra. Their next one is two days from now, at Sodden, which now seems like a poor idea. The one after that is not until the Midsummer Fair in Brugge, but Jaskier hopes Geralt will be able to track them down before then. He’s not competent to get Ciri much further out of harm’s way on his own, and he wouldn’t want to, anyway.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The infirmary consists of ten cots crammed into a five-man tent, and is staffed by a single, gangly apothecary’s apprentice.

“Oh, thank Melitele, a proper healer!” he says when he sees Jaskier.

“I’m not,” says Jaskier, “but show me what we’ve got.”

The apprentice, Nikkos, gives Jaskier a tour. There’s a woman with a broken leg; another with an arrow puncture in her shoulder; two people with burns; three with slash wounds from Nilfgaardian swords; and three with fevers and wet coughs.

“The influence of the spheres,” Nikkos explains. “A shame we haven’t any theriac, it’s a sovereign remedy.”

Until he’d gone on the Path with Geralt, Jaskier had thought of the influence of the spheres as a mild sort of illness that made the fashionable rounds at Oxenfurt every winter. It was good for a few days of looking interestingly pale and perhaps an excuse to have an attractive medical student visit one in one’s rooms. Then came the winter when they’d come upon the farmstead of an extended family, all felled by the influence save for the family’s patriarch. At first, Geralt tried to send Jaskier away, for his own health, and when Jaskier refused, Geralt had made him wear goggles and the mask he normally reserved for hunting Devourers. He’d felt ridiculous and ungainly, but he also hadn’t got sick.

“Bone broth will have to do,” says Jaskier, thinking back on the remedy Geralt had used in treating old Martijn’s family.

“Bone broth,” scoffs Nikkos.

“Yes, with as much garlic and oregano as can be spared,” says Jaskier. Nikkos looks dubious, so Jaskier turns to Ciri, who’d followed him to the infirmary. “Fiona, do you want to see what you can find?”

“Yes, m- Dad,” says Ciri. She manages to stop herself before dropping a curtsey, and heads off to look for ingredients. It would be good to have her away from here, Jaskier thinks, at least until he could come up with something that could be used for a mask.

“Now, show me what you’ve done with these wounds,” Jaskier directs Nikkos.

Here, at least, Nikkos has done a better job. He’s been able to keep the wounds clean and infection-free using his poultices, but the arrow puncture and the sword wounds aren’t going to heal over without stitches. The burns will be considerably more difficult, and Jaskier tells Nikkos to stay the course, changing bandages and poultices often until the skin begins to grow back. Fortunately, there’s nothing bad enough to need an amputation, because Jaskier is certain he’s not equal to that task.

He looks around the infirmary, takes stock of the supplies on hand, then gives Nikkos a list of additional surgery supplies he’ll need before going back off to his cot to retrieve some of his own supplies. On his way back he finds that Ciri has reunited with Dara, the page from yesterday, and they’re busy near the kitchen tent, sorting through scraps.

“Okay?” Jaskier asks her.

She’s never been the kind of child to turn her nose up at manual labor – unlike in Redania, Cintran nobles aren’t raised to disdain work that might leave them grubby.

Ciri nods. “Ma Despina’s showing us how to make the best of short rations when we have healthy folk and invalids to look after.”

Jaskier frowns – he knows that name – and as soon as Ma Despina makes her appearance he knows why. She’s a woman in her late sixties in an immaculate apron and headrail, the sleeves of her shirt rolled up to show still-strong forearms. She’s wielding a vicious butcher knife she clearly knows how to use, and Jaskier recognizes her as the chef who’d been ruling the Cintran Royal Kitchen with stern efficiency since before he even made his first visit there. And she will definitely know who he is, because she’s chased him out of more than one pantry-cupboard dalliance over the years.

She purses her lips at him and puts her hands on her hips, butcher knife sticking out menacingly.

“Julian of Kerack, ma’am,” Jaskier introduces himself.

“This is my Dad!” Ciri adds, coming round her pile of scraps to give Jaskier a hug. “He’s running the infirmary, like I said.” He pats her on the back and offers Ma Despina a reassuring smile.

She looks him up and down critically and says, “Influence of the spheres, my arse.”

“Ma’am?” says Jaskier. He knows what the symptoms he saw look like, but he’s happy to acknowledge that others might have a better empirical experience of diagnosing and treating illnesses.

“Comes of being in too-close contact with swine and poultry,” she says. “And it’s always worse when armies are on the move. Last bad outbreak was right after the Lioness’ first victory at Hochebuz.”

A few of the other refugees working the kitchen tent spit and curse at Ma Despina’s mention of Calanthe. Ciri buries her face against Jaskier’s doublet and Jaskier and Ma Despina affect not to have noticed either sentiment.

“Anything that can be done?” Jaskier asks her. “Other than the bone broth, I mean?”

“Aren’t you a physician?” Ma Despina asks him, a glint in her eye.

“No, ma’am, I’m – a battlefield medic, at best, a barber-surgeon,” says Jaskier, thinking back on his accumulated experiences patching up Geralt after his monster hunts. “Any wisdom you might have could help.”

“After the young people are finished with the scraps for bone broth,” she says, “I’ll set them to gathering willow bark for tea. And you can give them cloths soaked in cool water for their brows and necks. But those things can only soothe the pains of the fever, not serve to cure them.”

Jaskier absorbs the information and gives Ciri a last pat on the shoulder before letting her go.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am. And – I’m sure Fiona is in good hands with you,” he says.

“That she is, Master Julian,” Ma Despina agrees.

Jaskier gets to work boiling rags and instruments and by halfway through the afternoon, he has as many people stitched up as he can. They’re all very thankful, which is gratifying, but as many beds have been freed by his ministrations, are rapidly filled again. There’s a broken wrist and a now-infected cut, both on refugees newly arrived to the camp this morning, but the rest of the incoming patients are people coming in under the influence of the spheres. One of them is Savvina, the lawyer who’d been working at the gate.

“I’m fine,” she insists between phlegmy coughs.

“That you may be, but we don’t need you exposing all of our newcomers to the influence,” says her colleague, Xenia, who’s bringing her in. “Enough cases already, as I can see.”

“Yes,” Jaskier agrees, looking around the infirmary. There isn’t a free cot for Savvina. This cot has another one of the widows in it, that should be acceptable given the circumstances. “Here, have a lie down here, I’ll get you some willow bark tea and bone broth.”

He guides her to the cot, then casts about for dishes with which to serve her.

“Master Julian,” Xenia interrupts.

“Yes, ma’am?” Jaskier asks, distracted.

“You said your daughter has her letters?”

“Er, yes,” Jaskier agrees.

“With Savvina down under the influence, we could use her at the gate house come tomorrow,” Xenia suggests.

Jaskier takes a careful look at her. Chances are she has no ulterior motive; just needs the extra help as much as anyone else in the camp does.

“She’s been helping at the kitchen tent, but I’ll talk to her,” he promises.

The coughing from one of the patients under the influence grows weaker and more sporadic, which Jaskier initially takes as a sign she is recovering. But the next time he’s doing the rounds to allocate new cool cloths and more willow-bark tea, he notes that her lips are blue and her eyes are glassy.

“Shit, no,” he swears, and puts his fingers up to her neck to feel for a pulse. It’s there, but it’s very faint. There are pinprick bruises around her eyes and lips and her breath is shallow and labored.

“I’m just going to rest a little bit more, Master Julian,” she says.

“No, no, you need to stay awake for me,” he tells her.

“I’m going to -” she says, her eyes drifting shut.

“Hey, love, wake up for me,” Jaskier tries again, shaking her gently. Geralt has some kind of potion that Jaskier is supposed to pour down his throat if he stops breathing or if his heart stops. He’s had to use it more than once. It makes Geralt sit bolt upright, pupils blown wide and hackles raised, and he’s on high alert for the better part of an hour afterwards, jumping at every sound and movement. Jaskier hates having to use it, but it does bring him back. He doesn’t suppose there’s anything like that that can be used on humans.

“Mas -” begins Nikkos, and Jaskier jumps.

“-ter Julian?” Nikkos continues hesitantly.

Jaskier flexes his fingers and breathes deeply, trying to get his heart rate under control. “Nikkos, would you - confirm this patient’s heart rate for me,” he says.

Nikkos frowns in confusion, but comes toward the patient as Jaskier steps back to allow him space. “I don’t - that is, sir, I learned this from you, but, I can’t find a pulse?” Nikkos says.

Jaskier sags into a chair and buries his face in his hands. There had been losses, too, on old Martijn’s farm; he doesn’t know why he thought this time would be different.

“But this is hardly the first fatality, sir, we lost three already yesterday,” Nikkos continues.

“Fuck!” swears Jaskier. He has a sudden wish to travel back in time and have a sternly-worded conversation with his fourteen-year-old self at Oxenfurt about exactly what “living a life of adventure worthy in ballad and chronicle” would entail.

“Uh, quite, sir,” agrees Nikkos.

“What’s been happening with the bodies?” Jaskier asks.

“I’m not sure?” says Nikkos.

Jaskier pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can you find a page? That Dara, he seemed sharp.”

Nikkos returns shortly with Dara, and Jaskier lists off the things he needs help with. “I’m going to need more infirmary space, and I’d like some volunteers I can train to help either with surgery or nursing those under the influence. Surgery volunteers should have steady hands and a strong stomach - seamstresses or embroideresses would be good. And, see if you can find how the camp is disposing of dead bodies. With this much war and upheaval, they need to be burned fast unless we want to attract ghouls.”

Dara’s eyes grow wide and he takes off with his new collection of tasks.

“Ghouls? Oh, come on, those are surely old wives’ tales,” says Nikkos.

“I assure you, they are not,” Jaskier tells him, in a tone that brooks no opposition.

Some hours later, Jaskier is still juggling new cases of the influence, requests for more cots, and screening volunteer surgery trainees, when Ciri and Dara come barging into the now-expanded infirmary tent.

“Dad, when was the last time you sat down or had anything to eat or drink?” Ciri demands.

“Oh, er,” says Jaskier, stopping to brush his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You too, Master Nikkos,” says Ciri.

“I’m only an apprentice,” Nikkos protests.

“Ma Despina’s held some supper back for you, so get going,” Ciri says. “Dara and I can tend the patients while you eat.”

This spurs Jaskier into action. “No, you can’t; it’s catching,” he says, taking them each by the arm on his way out of the tent. From what he saw last time, children and youths are most likely to be vulnerable, and he doesn’t plan to be the one responsible for losing the Lion Cub of Cintra to illness.

Ma Despina joins Jaskier in forbidding Ciri to return to the infirmary, but then goes on to side with Ciri in insisting that Jaskier and Nikkos find people to spell them off in the infirmary overnight.

“And who, pray tell, would you have?” says Nikkos. “Master Julian and I are the only men of medicine in the camp –“

Jaskier’s two volunteer seamstresses-turned-surgeons frown, as they rightfully should.

“Mistress Xenia,” Ciri interrupts, eyeing Nikkos with distaste. “Your ledger, if you please.” Xenia hands her the ledger, looking intrigued. “Now, we need people strong enough to help patients into cots, since the influence saps patients of their strength. We need people who can fetch water from the creek, brew bone broth and willow bark tea, and it’s catching, so we need people who’ve already gone down with it –“ she trails off as she begins looking through the ledger.

Jaskier and Ma Despina both shake their heads.

“It’s not like the pestilence or the pox,” Jaskier tells her, remembering what Geralt told him. “It mutates every year, so a person can catch it more than once.”

“Well, that’s a bit shite,” says Ciri.

Xenia frowns at her, and for a moment Jaskier thinks she might scold Ciri for her language, but instead she says, “The old and the young are the most vulnerable, so perhaps adults in their prime? Any such as we have here right now?”

Ma Despina shakes her head again. “That’s usually so,” she says, “but your patients this time  _ are  _ mainly adults, are they not, Master Julian?”

“They are,” agrees Jaskier slowly.

“So -” Ma Despina begins.

“Those who survived the influence of Hochebuz might be better placed to help,” Xenia finishes.

“Right,” says Ciri, “that was in 1231, so we want people born 1215 or earlier.”

She begins flipping through the ledger and noting suggestions to Xenia and Dara. “Cosmas, hostler, age 51. Larissa, grandmother, aged 60.”

“Well, we’ll make a chatelaine of you, yet, girl,” says Xenia grudgingly.

“Or a general,” adds Ma Despina, hitting Ciri lightly on the shoulder with the back of a long spoon.

“We’ll be by the infirmary with reinforcements right away, Dad,” Ciri tells Jaskier, before taking off with Dara. “Come on, let’s go find these people.”

When Jaskier and Nikkos return to the infirmary after their supper, two more patients have been lost. Jaskier hates it, wishes there was more he could do, and it’s cold comfort that he knows even Geralt with his unparallelled knowledge of potions hadn’t been able to do more that one winter.

They get on with the unpleasant task of sending the bodies out for burning and putting the bed linens in for a thorough boiling, and there are three new patients before Ciri and Dara come by. The promised reinforcements are an older couple, likely around the age of Jaskier’s own mother, thin and wiry from continuing to work the land every day.

“Now, what have we here?” asks the man, and Nikkos starts to give him an orientation, while the woman pats Jaskier on the cheek and says,

“Oh, no, sweetheart, you’ve been working yourself too hard; you look a little peaky.”

“Thanks, mum,” Jaskier says, softening the grievance with a cheeky wink. Ciri elbows Dara in the stomach and giggles.

“Tsk, you’re doing your best. Now, you go get a good night’s sleep, and let Pavlos and Ismene look after your patients, we’ve weathered a few outbreaks now and we’ll weather this one, too.”

“May the gods and goddesses grant it, ma’am,” says Jaskier, before leaving the tent.

As he’s heading back to the widows’ tent with Ciri, he asks Dara,

“Are you here with your parents?”

Dara shrugs. “Dead,” he says diffidently, and Jaskier wonders how long he’s been fending for himself. Unfortunately, he knows all too well from experience the challenges a boy that age can face on his own.

“Go get your things and your bedroll,” he tells Dara, “you can bunk in with us.”

Halfway through the night, Jaskier wakes up with a coughing fit. As he’s leaning over the edge of the cot, trying not to wake Ciri, he notices that Dara’s ever-present cap has slipped off his head, revealing his unmistakably pointed ears. Shit. He’s already in a vulnerable-enough position; he’ll be even worse off if his elven heritage is revealed. Jaskier pulls off his cloak and bends down to lay it over Dara with a view to covering his ears. As he gets closer, though, Dara wakes up, and he comes up swinging.

Jaskier dodges his fist easily and makes a shushing motion, then another indicating that Dara should put his cap back on as quickly as possible. He does so, but then he scoots away from Jaskier on his bedroll, assuming a defensive position. His eyes are very wide.

“You don’t need to tell me how old you are,” Jaskier tells him, “but I was on my own on the road at fifteen, and I know what it’s like, how - dangerous it can be. I saw you haven’t got much, and I thought you could use my cloak. Don’t worry; I have another one, and I can stand to part with this one. And don’t fret about your cap, I didn’t see anything.”

Dara’s eyes remain wide, and he stays sitting up, looking suspiciously at the cloak. Jaskier takes care to get back into the cot as though nothing at all out of the ordinary has just occurred.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Not even twenty years of traveling with Geralt, who loves to be on the road by dawn, has been enough to reconcile Jaskier to being an early riser, but this morning feels especially difficult. His limbs feel like lead, and his head is muzzy. Yesterday _was_ a very full day. He’ll take more breaks and drink more water today. He levers himself out of his cot and gets dressed.

The morning passes in a blur. There were two more deaths overnight, and so many new cases that the entire adjoining tent has been annexed. New refugees are still arriving at the camp, but now their injuries have gone infected and untended for so long that mere cleaning and stitching may not be sufficient to cure them. Jaskier doesn’t even remember until Ciri comes to fetch him for lunch that he’d told Xenia he would talk to Ciri about working the gate house, but it turns out, of course, that she’s perfectly capable of looking out for herself.

“Ugh,” she says, as they’re heading to the mess tent, “if I hear one more thing out of Mistress Xenia about proper ladylike behaviour, I shall scream.”

“Alright, but just regular screaming, mind,” says Jaskier. “Save the weaponized screaming for if you’re being abducted or the whole camp is being attacked or something.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Ciri says.

“You know,

_The Lioness raised a killing blow_  
_With hey ho and a bonny oh_  
_The Princess cried, ‘I will not yield,’_  
_Her cry of love became a shield_  
_The Lioness roars so boldly oh_ ,” sings Jaskier.

Despite general sentiment being against Calanthe in the camp, its inhabitants stop the things they were doing when he breaks into song to join in the call-and-response lines. Jaskier can’t keep the smile from his face. It’s gratifying that his song is so well-known and loved, even after so many years.

“Aw, sing the rest!” shouts someone, when he stops after the one verse.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m afraid that’s all I know,” he says apologetically. He can’t risk someone recognizing him, and, moreover, that one verse has put him quite out of breath. If he’s coming down sick himself, he absolutely can’t risk straining his voice lest he permanently injure it.

“ _I_ know it!” someone else shouts, and starts the ballad over from the top.

“ _The full moon rose on Belleteyn_  
_With hey ho and a bonny oh_  
_And suitors came from every land_  
_To vie for Princess Pavetta’s hand_  
_The Lioness roars so boldly oh!”_

“But surely that isn’t what really happened,” Ciri insists in an undertone, as Jaskier chivvies her along to the mess tent. They attract some uncharitable looks when Ma Despina pulls them out of the queue and hands them bowls of pease porridge personally, but then Jaskier hears her telling the detractors that he’s the chief medic, and they change their expressions, tugging their forelocks at him respectfully.

Jaskier takes Ciri off to as private a spot in the mess area as he can manage. He’s about to speak candidly when Dara slides in next to Ciri on the log with his own bowl of porridge, looking edgy. Jaskier sighs inwardly, but realizes he can still say what he needs to say.

“Cintra has not always been good to Elves, but the truth is that the Elder Blood runs in the Cintran royal line,” he begins.

Ciri takes a sharp breath in and squeezes her hands together tightly in her lap. Dara, looking off in the other direction guiltily, seems to miss her reaction. Jaskier’s head hurts. He understands that Ciri and Dara may be hiding things more life-threatening than usual, but Melitele preserve him from youths keeping secrets from one another.

“The Lioness herself had no magic, but her mother was said to be able to raise a drawbridge with a twitch of her eyebrows,” Jaskier continues. “And those who were there at the wedding banquet of Princess Pavetta swear they saw her scream fit to bring the whole hall down when the Lioness made to kill her groom - so you might imagine that some people also hope that the Lion Cub carries the same magic.”

“What - would that mean?” Ciri asks haltingly, twisting her spoon around in her hand.

“Assuming she yet lives,” Jaskier says, “she’d be a valuable playing piece. Who controls Cintra controls access to the North. Nobody can move an army north or south of the Yaruga without going through Cintran territory. Every one of the Northern Kingdoms will be trying to find a princeling to marry her, in hopes of either consolidating power to resist Nilfgaard, or having something to offer to Nilfgaard in return for preferential treatment.”

For instance, Jaskier is certain that Sigismund Dijkstra will be exceedingly displeased with him for having failed to use his care and custody of Ciri to immediately deliver her to Redania for marriage to Radovid as soon as was seemly.

Ciri is looking pale and sick to her stomach, and Jaskier notices he has attracted quite an audience for his impromptu lecture on current events.

“So,” he concludes, “if she’s out there, and wants to stay in charge of her own destiny, she’d best hope she can scream at least as well as her late mother.”

“Now,” says Ma Despina, hitting each of Ciri and Dara on the shoulder with her spoon, “enough of this lolly-gagging, you two, there’s parsnips to be peeled before dinner. And you, Master Julian, you ought to know better than to be filling the children’s heads full of these fairy tales. The rest of you,” she adds, addressing the crowd, “I assume you have work to do, too, unless you want to join the children in peeling parsnips. Blood of Elves, tch!”

“Oh, but what about -” begins someone else,

_“Pale was the wounded knight who bore the rowan shield;_  
_Loud and cruel were the ravens’ cries as they feasted on the field_ , _crying -_ ”

The sound of people singing to raise the camp’s collective spirits accompanies Jaskier back to the infirmary, but this one is a traditional ballad, not one of his own compositions. It only makes it easier for Jaskier to find himself preoccupied with thinking about how many new patients he will have and whether he needs to check himself in as one of them. His remaining thoughts are scrabbling for what, exactly, he and Geralt _are_ going to do with Ciri. Assuming that Geralt catches up to them any time soon.

That evening as they’re huddled in their cot, Ciri asks,

“Is that all really true, what you said, about all the Northern Kingdoms wanting to get their hands on - Princess Cirilla?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Jaskier tells her.

“That’s - terrifying,” Ciri says. Jaskier nods. “What are - what will -” she continues, struggling for how to formulate the question in a way that won’t give them away. Dara is still making his bedroll next to their cot, so there is no way to have the conversation in private.

Jaskier decides to take advantage of the opportunity to start disseminating the story he wants to have get out about where they’re going. “We’ll have to wait for the quarantine to be lifted, and hopefully your other dad will turn up, and then I have family in Redania we can go to.”

Ciri’s eyes go wide. “What about -” she begins. Jaskier squeezes her hand and shakes his head, hoping she’ll understand it’s a cover story. She swallows. “Tell me about - our family in Redania,” she says then, so Jaskier tells her all about the family he wished he’d had as a boy until she falls asleep.

Sleep comes much more slowly for Jaskier, and when it does, it’s filled with bloody, fiery nightmares - sitting an exam for a class he hadn’t studied for while Dijkstra and Philippa Eilhart sit watching him, reminding him that the penalty for failure is death; fighting griffins and manticores himself armed with nothing but a dagger because Geralt lies gravely injured in their dens.

The next morning, Jaskier wakes even more reluctantly than the day before, and Ciri has already gone off to her job at the gate house. He can’t breathe at all through his nose, and his head feels worse than it ever has after a night of drinking, but he’s still able to get to his feet. He makes his way to the infirmary, but he’s so fatigued he has to stop and rest several times during the usually-short journey.

Ismene tuts at him, presses him into a chair, and gives him a mug of bone broth to drink. It makes his sinus cavities feel momentarily better.

“Okay,” he says, “How are we doing? New cases? Overnight fatalities? Other injuries?”

“You, Master Julian, are a new case,” Ismene says. Jaskier leans back in the chair and accepts the cool cloth she hands him.

“Fuck,” he acknowledges. “Okay.”

But Ismene gives him an update anyway. “Fifteen new cases. Eight overnight deaths, fewer than the previous night. Twenty new people into the camp, though there’s talk of turning folk away so as not to spread the influence further. And there’s been some rumbling from some quarters about leaving the camp before they can get sick, not too sure how we’re going to stop that happening.”

Jaskier sighs and presses the now not-so-cold cloth over his eyes.

Ismene continues caring for Jaskier and the other patients. It’s not quite as comfortable sleeping in the chair, but Jaskier is so fatigued after so many days on his feet that it’s easier than he expected to drift off again. He’s drifting, unpleasantly, dreaming of an arachas with Dijkstra’s face sitting on his chest, when he registers Ciri yelling urgently,

“Dad! Dad!”

Accompanying her is the voice of a man calling, “Make way!” and beyond that, alarmed mutters of camp inhabitants. Shit, something important is up. Jaskier forces himself to his feet and goes to pull open the flap of the infirmary tent. When he gets there, he has to lean against the tent pole to cough. Fuck, everything hurts when he does that - his abdominal muscles, his throat, even his eyeballs.

“Now, you sit right back down, Master Julian,” Ismene tries, but now Jaskier can actually see Ciri, and she him.

She puts on a burst of speed. “Dad!” she cries, rushing into his arms. “It’s - other Dad!”

“Oh! Where?” Jaskier asks, hugging her. He looks around for Geralt without releasing her - he feels a bit unsteady on his feet.

“In the cart, he’s - really badly injured, I think,” says Ciri, her voice wobbling.

Jaskier gives Ciri a last reassuring pat on the shoulder before releasing her. She does an admirable job of not bursting into tears, but Ismene pulls her into her arms anyway. Ciri stiffens, then buries her face in Ismene’s arm. Jaskier hustles forward as quickly as he can, and the man pulling the cart, a grizzled farmer somewhere in middle age, steps aside. Jaskier grabs the side of the cart for support, fatigued and out of breath. He’s just going to rest his head against the side wall of the cart for one moment. In the bed of the cart, Geralt, grimy and disheveled as usual, is thrashing about, delirious. He’s calling out the names of every woman Jaskier can think of him ever having met, and several names he’s never heard, besides.

“You the medic around here?” the farmer asks Jaskier, who nods. “No offense, but you look worse than some of the patients.”

Jaskier manages a feeble laugh. “You’re probably right,” he agrees. “But -”

“-Jaskier,” says Geralt suddenly, looking directly at Jaskier.

“Here, help me up there,” Jaskier says to the farmer. “Did he have a horse, or saddle bags, or anything with him?”

“Aye, a horse,” agrees the farmer. When he doesn’t immediately move to help Jaskier into the cart, Jaskier looks for a foothold to climb up for himself. This is going to be a lot, but he has to keep going. He’ll just get into the cart, and make sure Geralt gets his potions, and then he can sleep for a week.

Geralt struggles up to his elbows, looks around a little more, and says, “Ciri.”

“Go, get his horse!” Jaskier orders the farmer. “She has the medicines he needs.”

He’s made it into the cart, but he needs to stop a moment and catch his breath again.

“What -” says Geralt, sitting all the way up.

“Geralt,” says Jaskier. There’s no sense trying to give him a cover identity. “It’s okay, you’ve been injured. Just lie back down -”

He makes his way to the front of the cart and collapses to his knees next to Geralt.

“Roach,” says Geralt.

“Yes, she’s on her way,” Jaskier agrees. “You’re delirious; you’ve been calling out for all sorts of people, but it’s me, your husband, Julian.”

“Julian,” says Geralt, looking Jaskier directly in the eye and putting a hand on his arm. He looks, for the moment, lucid. He declines, whether for good or ill, to say anything about the label of “husband.”

“Yes, and our daughter, Fiona, is here, too. She’s safe,” Jaskier adds. He runs his free hand over Geralt clinically, checking for injuries. The most alarming is the large chunk bitten out of his leg.

Geralt sits up, still grasping Jaskier’s arm. “Fiona,” he repeats, and there is Ciri, climbing into the cart herself.

“Hi, Dad,” she says.

He reaches out his other hand to her, and she crawls forward, allowing him to pull her into a hug. Jaskier lays his head back against Geralt’s shoulder and spends a moment just trying to breathe. 

“You’re laboring under the influence of the spheres,” Geralt tells him.

“Yeah, well, _you_ have a - ghoul bite, or something,” Jaskier retorts, poking him in the leg just above the gaping wound.

“Ow,” growls Geralt, not very convincingly. “Alghoul bite.”

“Oh, shit,” says Jaskier.

“Camp isn’t burning its bodies fast enough,” Geralt adds.

“Fuck,” swears Jaskier. He’d tried to impress on the camp’s guards the importance of doing so, but then hadn’t gone outside the palisade to follow up and make sure it was happening. Too many other things going on inside - running the infirmary, looking out for Ciri, trying to stay on his own feet in the face of getting sick himself.

Then Geralt stiffens and sucks in a sharp breath, grabbing hard at Jaskier’s arm. “Renfri!” he cries out.

“Fiona,” Jaskier says to Ciri, “see if you can find what’s keeping your Dad’s horse.”

Ciri nods, vaults out of the cart, and takes off. Jaskier takes the opportunity to drift off again. How can a simple illness be so tiring? How many sorceresses and princesses does Geralt know, anyway? He comes to again to find Ciri shaking him by the shoulder.

“Dad, Dad!” she says.

“Muh?” says Jaskier intelligently.

“Visenna!” cries Geralt, flailing a hand out. Ciri and Jaskier duck.

“Did you bring Roach?” Jaskier asks Ciri.

“Dad’s horse?” she asks. “Yes, and his saddle bags, too,” she adds, pushing the bags in question forward. “What does he need - is he going to make it?”

Jaskier sorts through the bottles, trying to decide which potion to administer first. Swallow, for healing? Or White Honey, to neutralize whatever toxins are already coursing through Geralt’s system?

“The - one with the green seal,” says Geralt, gesturing vaguely.

“Right, green seal,” says Jaskier, pulling the requested vial out of Geralt’s bag and handing it over. It’s neither Swallow nor White Honey - every time he _thinks_ he has a handle on all the potions, there’s some new twist he needs to learn. Geralt pulls the seal off with his teeth and downs half the bottle before pouring the rest over the wound in his leg, where it hisses and sizzles. He grunts, then passes out. Jaskier allows himself to collapse into the bed of the cart next to him, coughing wetly.

“You can’t both die,” says Ciri in a small voice.

The next time Jaskier wakes up, he’s in an actual cot. Geralt is much cleaner than he was when Jaskier last saw him, and he’s limping around the infirmary tent, mixing potions and issuing orders to infirmary workers who are all wearing improvised masks. Jaskier considers sitting up, but it feels like it might be too much effort. He turns his head to look at Geralt and works a hand out from under his coverlet, so he can wave it in Geralt’s general direction. Geralt, of course, notices right away.

“You,” he says, crossing over to Jaskier’s bedside, “were supposed to be staying out of trouble.” He puts his hand on Jaskier’s forehead to check his temperature.

“Yes, and so were you,” Jaskier fires back. He attempts to capture Geralt’s hand with his own instead.

Geralt hooks a stool with his foot, so he can sit by Jaskier’s bedside for a moment. “We both did a shit job of that, didn’t we,” he says.

“Yes, I think I’ll just get arrested and thrown in this dungeon today,” says Jaskier.

“Now,” begins Geralt.

Savvina bursts into the tent. She’s up on her feet and looking much better. “Master Geralt - oh, oops, sorry,” she says, the tips of her ears turning red.

Geralt and Jaskier both startle, and they drop each other’s hands guiltily.

“How long have you been married?” she teases them.

“Thirteen-” begins Geralt, as Jaskier says,

“Fifteen-”

“-Fourteen-”

Savvina sighs. “Wish the magic had still been there that long with my late wife,” she says. “At any rate, I wanted to tell you - both of you, I suppose - we’ve succeeded in having the camp quarantined. Nobody in or out for another fortnight. We’re going to-”

“Hold on,” Geralt tells her.

“Should I leave you some privacy?” she asks archly, and Jaskier doesn’t see the look Geralt gives her, but she does bow herself out of the tent.

“Now, I don’t want to find myself widowed any time soon,” Geralt tells Jaskier, squeezing his hand perhaps a little harder than is warranted. Oh, yes, as soon as they have any real privacy at all, they are definitely going to be having some words. About the surprise dungeon visit, the unauthorized practice of medicine, the false claims of marriage, and possibly some things that Jaskier has already forgotten about. “So you’re going to spend all your time resting and getting better. And then, I don’t know what nonsense you’ve been filling Fiona’s head with about going to your family in Redania, we’re going north to stay with my brothers. That kid Dara that she’s befriended, he can even come, too, if he wants.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I based the “influence of the spheres” on the influenza pandemic of 1918; the word “influenza” does truly mean “influence” in Italian. Where normal flu outbreaks tend to be more dangerous for children, teens, and the elderly, the 1918 flu was most deadly in adults aged 20 to 40, which is the pattern I used here. The extended farm family Geralt and Jaskier met and helped through a previous outbreak in flashback are based on my maternal grandfather’s family experience of the 1918 pandemic.
> 
> Only two verses to Jaskier’s ballad about Pavetta’s wedding banquet exist (so far) and the tune is some kind of unholy mashup of Loreena McKennitt’s “[The Bonny Swans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tQx7Klh4BM)” and Stan Rogers’ “[Barrett’s Privateers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwzRkjn86w)”. The other song sung is “The Witch of the West-Mer-Lands”, which is neither a traditional ballad nor a Stan Rogers song, it was written by Archie Fisher. My [favorite version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcVY2nDgQPM) is by the Waybacks.


End file.
